The present invention relates to user interactive computers controlled through display interfaces, and particularly to the connection of peripheral devices to the computer through multiple serial ports.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past few years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world require the use of computer terminals. There is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the world""s population which, up to a few years ago, was computer indifferent. The computer industries are making substantial efforts and progress in making the computer more accessible and easier to set up, operate and modify by this new population of computer users.
On the other hand, with the increasing power of computers, functions and resources available to the interactive user have greatly increased. Energized by the convergence of computers with electronic media industries, increasing computer resource has been devoted to the computer-electronic media interfaces and controls. A wide variety of peripheral electronic media devices are now connectable to computers. In addition, with the increased availability of relatively inexpensive integrated circuit technologies, increasing numbers of functions which were originally performed by the computer system itself are performed by peripheral devices connected to the computer. Most of these peripheral devices are attached to the computer through serial ports.
External modems have been conventionally attached to computers via serial ports. In addition, mice, joysticks, drawing tablets, MIDI sound modules for recording and playing back music, handheld computers or even notebook computers, monitors, and scanners are just a few examples of peripheral devices which may be connected to the computer through serial ports.
As a result, in recent years, the number of serial ports for access of peripheral devices to the computer have increased from a couple to well over a hundred of such serial ports as implemented through the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and similar serial port expansion units. This in turn has resulted in significant problems in keeping track of the physical labelling, i.e. the connector cable attachments. The conventional physical labelling of the cables and ports has become quite cumbersome, confusing and particularly discomforting to the novice computer user. Mislabelling of cables and ports can also present problems. It is not uncommon during the manufacture and assembly of computer hardware for wiring to become cross-connected so that the actual serial port connection may not match the labelling of the port.
The present invention involves an easy to use and effective solution to the problem by providing on-screen identifiers for the serial ports as peripheral devices are connected to such ports. Accordingly, in a computer with an interactive display, a serial I/O bus, and a plurality of serial ports for connecting peripheral devices to said computer through said serial bus, there is provided means for storing identifiers for each of said plurality of serial ports, and means for displaying the identifier for a serial port responsive to any change in the status of a connection to a peripheral device at said port. Thus, the change in status may result from connecting a new peripheral device to the serial port or it may result from disconnecting a peripheral device from the serial port. The displayed identifier may conveniently be numerical. Also, the invention may be effectively used when there is a USB extension to which identifiable serial ports are connected. This universal bus extension may comprise a plurality of linkable bus extension modules, each of said bus extension modules comprising at least one of said plurality of serial ports.
Effective results may be achieved when the identifiers are stored in a look-up table, and the means for displaying an identifier comprises means for detecting the connection of a new peripheral device to any of said serial ports, and means responsive to the detection for looking up the identifier for the connected port and imparting said identifier to said display means.